TuteTibiImperes:Don't you get Medicare when you hit 65? Maybe I'm fuzzy on how it works, but I was under the impression that it covered most healthcare costs with reasonable copays.

This is true. I'm guessing the bulk of this number is end-of-life expenses, where you enter the hospital on foot, but leave in a bag. Even a two or three day stay in a hospital can easily exceed a hundred large. But who gives a shiat? You're dead. And, besides, you get to screw your heirs out of a sizable portion of your estate when the bill comes due - what's more Boomer than that?

Eh, regardless of where you stand on Obama care, a big chunk of that $220,000 is probably near-useless medical effort expended in the last two months of life.

What's interesting is that most doctors insist on doing everything for their elderly or terminal patients, sometimes even despite a patient's written instructions, and yet, when it comes to THEIR end of life, the average doc prefers to go out peacefully (and cheaply) on his own terms.

Tell your family you don't want to spend $100,000, and your last month as a vegetable in an ICU, just so Aunt Minnie can fly in to pay her respects at your bedside.

Ha! Thanks to obamacare my deductable went up 600% and the annual cap on most services (like speech therapy for my autistic son) has been cut in half, oh yeah and they no longer cover diabetes medication because who the hell needs to control their diabetes, right? I mean my wife does but you couldn't give two shots about any of us, isn't that right?

emersonbiggins:TuteTibiImperes: Don't you get Medicare when you hit 65? Maybe I'm fuzzy on how it works, but I was under the impression that it covered most healthcare costs with reasonable copays.

This is true. I'm guessing the bulk of this number is end-of-life expenses, where you enter the hospital on foot, but leave in a bag. Even a two or three day stay in a hospital can easily exceed a hundred large. But who gives a shiat? You're dead. And, besides, you get to screw your heirs out of a sizable portion of your estate when the bill comes due - what's more Boomer than that?

I've never looked into it, I just assumed that Medicare paid for everything once you were eligible, but apparently if you exhaust all of the benefits you could be on the hook for $45K in copayments if you stay in the hospital for six months, and the full uninsured costs after that.

Gah, that's a bit scary. I've been saying we need Medicare for all paid out of general tax dollars, but apparently even Medicare can add up in costs.

How does it work in Canada, the UK, and other places with fully socialized medicine? Are there any out of pocket expenses for necessary or life saving medical care?

Z1P2:Benevolent Misanthrope: Unless, of course, you live in a civilized country where everyone has insurance.

Ha! Thanks to obamacare my deductable went up 600% and the annual cap on most services (like speech therapy for my autistic son) has been cut in half, oh yeah and they no longer cover diabetes medication because who the hell needs to control their diabetes, right? I mean my wife does but you couldn't give two shots about any of us, isn't that right?

Unfortunately most of us live in America where we are forced to get health care yet nothing is done to control costs. Which would be just crazy to think its because healthcare and big pharma donated a shiat ton of money to the Dems......

Insert price controls like other nations have and 90% of the problems with healthcare goes away.

Z1P2:Ha! Thanks to obamacare my deductable went up 600% and the annual cap on most services (like speech therapy for my autistic son) has been cut in half....

We said "civilized" countries. We don't have "Obamacare" (designed by your Republicans).Our biggest worry is which pocket our government ID card is in. Showing that is the last thing we need to think about when it comes to payment.

doglover:Z1P2: Benevolent Misanthrope: Unless, of course, you live in a civilized country where everyone has insurance.

Ha! Thanks to obamacare my deductable went up 600% and the annual cap on most services (like speech therapy for my autistic son) has been cut in half, oh yeah and they no longer cover diabetes medication because who the hell needs to control their diabetes, right? I mean my wife does but you couldn't give two shots about any of us, isn't that right?

1/10

Yeah, that's not a troll, if you have health care insurance you are paying more for deductibles now, ours went from nothing to $1000. PT used to be covered but now we have huge such huge deductibles that its cheaper just to get surgery instead, its insane.

Z1P2:Benevolent Misanthrope: Unless, of course, you live in a civilized country where everyone has insurance.

Ha! Thanks to obamacare my deductable went up 600% and the annual cap on most services (like speech therapy for my autistic son) has been cut in half, oh yeah and they no longer cover diabetes medication because who the hell needs to control their diabetes, right? I mean my wife does but you couldn't give two shots about any of us, isn't that right?

PunGent:Eh, regardless of where you stand on Obama care, a big chunk of that $220,000 is probably near-useless medical effort expended in the last two months of life.

What's interesting is that most doctors insist on doing everything for their elderly or terminal patients, sometimes even despite a patient's written instructions, and yet, when it comes to THEIR end of life, the average doc prefers to go out peacefully (and cheaply) on his own terms.

Tell your family you don't want to spend $100,000, and your last month as a vegetable in an ICU, just so Aunt Minnie can fly in to pay her respects at your bedside.

Just for fun I decided to see what health insurance plans are going for online. The only ones that are even remotely affordable are abbreviated as 'POS' plans. I'm hoping that whoever is responsible for that acronym realizes the humor in it given the obscenely high deductibles that come with them.

My daughter bumped her head in Waikiki and required 6 stitches. She saw 3 different doctors and they billed our insurance company almost $7000 for it. In Canada it would have cost about 5% of that amount if you had no medical coverage.Something is rotten in the system, from my limited perspective.

steamingpile:doglover: Z1P2: Benevolent Misanthrope: Unless, of course, you live in a civilized country where everyone has insurance.

Ha! Thanks to obamacare my deductable went up 600% and the annual cap on most services (like speech therapy for my autistic son) has been cut in half, oh yeah and they no longer cover diabetes medication because who the hell needs to control their diabetes, right? I mean my wife does but you couldn't give two shots about any of us, isn't that right?

1/10

Yeah, that's not a troll, if you have health care insurance you are paying more for deductibles now, ours went from nothing to $1000. PT used to be covered but now we have huge such huge deductibles that its cheaper just to get surgery instead, its insane.

steamingpile:doglover: Z1P2: Benevolent Misanthrope: Unless, of course, you live in a civilized country where everyone has insurance.

Ha! Thanks to obamacare my deductable went up 600% and the annual cap on most services (like speech therapy for my autistic son) has been cut in half, oh yeah and they no longer cover diabetes medication because who the hell needs to control their diabetes, right? I mean my wife does but you couldn't give two shots about any of us, isn't that right?

1/10

Yeah, that's not a troll, if you have health care insurance you are paying more for deductibles now, ours went from nothing to $1000. PT used to be covered but now we have huge such huge deductibles that its cheaper just to get surgery instead, its insane.

Unless you're planning to be the world's oldest person, a deductible going from $0 to $1000 will take a long time to cost you $220,000. $1000 is not a huge deductible. Anyone who opts for (free, I assume?) surgery over paying the darned deductible and getting PT is either completely broke or lacks reasoning skills. Surgery is risky. PT is good for you and much more likely to restore you to optimal health. Obviously, I qualify that by saying that this only applies when PT is a valid option to surgery.

No, I'm not planning to retire. I plan to work until I die, if I live that long. Wait, what? I suppose if I become unable to work, I'll still be able to figure out how to tie a knot or take some pills.

PunGent:Eh, regardless of where you stand on Obama care, a big chunk of that $220,000 is probably near-useless medical effort expended in the last two months of life.

What's interesting is that most doctors insist on doing everything for their elderly or terminal patients, sometimes even despite a patient's written instructions, and yet, when it comes to THEIR end of life, the average doc prefers to go out peacefully (and cheaply) on his own terms.

Tell your family you don't want to spend $100,000, and your last month as a vegetable in an ICU, just so Aunt Minnie can fly in to pay her respects at your bedside.

It's not even the money (although it can be big). Most people do not want to spend the last month or two being "treated" for what is an incurable condition. Fark Aunt Minnie. The dying person's dignity trumps her rights to a memory.

An 86-yo former neighbor of mine died last year. For the first 80 years of his life, he enjoyed the most robust health. At 70, he still ran miles a day (and had a few beers at the end). At 75, he could still swim for an hour. At 83, he'd given all that up and appeared grumpy. The last nine months of his life were terrible. Dementia and incontinence => assisted living => they will not care for you if you need medical attention => frequent ambulance rides and overnight stays in hospitals who didn't want him and his assisted care facility wouldn't take him back (needed medical attention) = stays at new places that would, found in a panic by his widow, who used their last savings to pay for these places. He had bed sores, rotting ulcers, didn't know where he was or what was going on, but the insanity continued until his last visit to the ER, when a kind doctor said to the wife, I can do a lot of things that will prolong your husband's life but probably nothing that will get him more than two weeks more. He's in pain and confused by all these transfers. Would you consider hospice?

Would she ever. She'd only needed someone to tell her that it was okay.

TuteTibiImperes:emersonbiggins: TuteTibiImperes: Don't you get Medicare when you hit 65? Maybe I'm fuzzy on how it works, but I was under the impression that it covered most healthcare costs with reasonable copays.

This is true. I'm guessing the bulk of this number is end-of-life expenses, where you enter the hospital on foot, but leave in a bag. Even a two or three day stay in a hospital can easily exceed a hundred large. But who gives a shiat? You're dead. And, besides, you get to screw your heirs out of a sizable portion of your estate when the bill comes due - what's more Boomer than that?

I've never looked into it, I just assumed that Medicare paid for everything once you were eligible, but apparently if you exhaust all of the benefits you could be on the hook for $45K in copayments if you stay in the hospital for six months, and the full uninsured costs after that.

Gah, that's a bit scary. I've been saying we need Medicare for all paid out of general tax dollars, but apparently even Medicare can add up in costs.

How does it work in Canada, the UK, and other places with fully socialized medicine? Are there any out of pocket expenses for necessary or life saving medical care?

In Ontario, prescription drugs are not covered and there are limitations. e.g OHIP doesn't cover Chiropractic treatments (they did but then almost 20 years ago they realized it's quak medicine and stopped (we realized shortly after but I will get to that)). They are also dropping the coverage of annual checkups since it's known (since 1972 to be specific) that annual checkups can be more detrimental then beneficial.Essentially socialized medicine works on a big scale but it can suck to be you if you are the small percentile that falls between the cracks.

For us, my wife woke up on a Sunday morning and had double vision, we called an ambulance and spent the next 12 hours in the ER (about 20 minutes waiting to see a doctor) with a number of doctors and 2 specialists. They were at first afraid it may be MS fortunately they didn't tell us until they had ruled it out with a CAT scan. By the end they figured it out. Wife had a chiro adjustment 2 days before and he had manipulated her neck. When he did that it had thrown everything out of whack. That Sunday it had sprung back (which it does) but this time it had cut the blood supply to a portion of her brain which caused her left eye to track slower than her right. They wanted an MRI done (oh the horrors as we all know the horrible waiting times in Ontario for MRIs) to make sure things were ok. It took two weeks to get it done.

After all was said and done, the total for the bill was $40 for the ambulance. I have no idea how much (>10k at least) it would have cost if we lived in the states but at that point I was unemployed after my contract got canceled and we would have been seriously screwed if that had been the case. Everything would probably have been done in one day though instead of over 2 weeks.

The horror stories you hear about 6 months for an MRI is for nonlifethreatening i.e. screwed up knee which would suck but makes sense.

I love what I do for a living and will probably work until I drop dead. My dad just retired and all he does is sit around, goes on the occasional cruise. He'll probably be dead soon of boredom. People who live their entire life looking forward to retirement are already dead.

Z1P2:Benevolent Misanthrope: Unless, of course, you live in a civilized country where everyone has insurance.

Ha! Thanks to obamacare my deductable went up 600% and the annual cap on most services (like speech therapy for my autistic son) has been cut in half, oh yeah and they no longer cover diabetes medication because who the hell needs to control their diabetes, right? I mean my wife does but you couldn't give two shots about any of us, isn't that right?

Obamacare doesn't kick in until next year and of course it covers diabetes medication.

ElizaDoolittle:PunGent: Eh, regardless of where you stand on Obama care, a big chunk of that $220,000 is probably near-useless medical effort expended in the last two months of life.

What's interesting is that most doctors insist on doing everything for their elderly or terminal patients, sometimes even despite a patient's written instructions, and yet, when it comes to THEIR end of life, the average doc prefers to go out peacefully (and cheaply) on his own terms.

Tell your family you don't want to spend $100,000, and your last month as a vegetable in an ICU, just so Aunt Minnie can fly in to pay her respects at your bedside.

It's not even the money (although it can be big). Most people do not want to spend the last month or two being "treated" for what is an incurable condition. Fark Aunt Minnie. The dying person's dignity trumps her rights to a memory.

An 86-yo former neighbor of mine died last year. For the first 80 years of his life, he enjoyed the most robust health. At 70, he still ran miles a day (and had a few beers at the end). At 75, he could still swim for an hour. At 83, he'd given all that up and appeared grumpy. The last nine months of his life were terrible. Dementia and incontinence => assisted living => they will not care for you if you need medical attention => frequent ambulance rides and overnight stays in hospitals who didn't want him and his assisted care facility wouldn't take him back (needed medical attention) = stays at new places that would, found in a panic by his widow, who used their last savings to pay for these places. He had bed sores, rotting ulcers, didn't know where he was or what was going on, but the insanity continued until his last visit to the ER, when a kind doctor said to the wife, I can do a lot of things that will prolong your husband's life but probably nothing that will get him more than two weeks more. He's in pain and confused by all these transfers. Would you consider hospice?

Would she ever. She'd only neede ...

I've generally heard nothing but good things about hospice care.

/I'm sure there are bad ones...they probably don't a get a lot of repeat business...

PunGent:Eh, regardless of where you stand on Obama care, a big chunk of that $220,000 is probably near-useless medical effort expended in the last two months of life.

What's interesting is that most doctors insist on doing everything for their elderly or terminal patients, sometimes even despite a patient's written instructions, and yet, when it comes to THEIR end of life, the average doc prefers to go out peacefully (and cheaply) on his own terms.

Tell your family you don't want to spend $100,000, and your last month as a vegetable in an ICU, just so Aunt Minnie can fly in to pay her respects at your bedside.

I know it makes me an asshole, but I remember I was particularly annoyed when I heard my elderly grandmother received a $400,000 heart surgery on uncle sam's dime... which only extended her life by like 2 or 3 years. I'm not in any position to decide the value of life... but come the fark on, almost a half million dollars on someone who's retired? Who probably paid no where near that in taxes ever over her entire life?

At some point, we need to be more farking realistic. Not to mention no surgery should ever cost that kind of money.

Here you go:Get old, get sick.If you have assets, you must pay before Medicare kicks in.Then you fire up the debt machine while you die.After you die, there's a lien on your estate for the debt.Just in case you had something silly like life insurance or etc.

The system is designed to bleed us dry at the end and that's what it does.That's Ahmerikuh for you and me.

Alonjar:I know it makes me an asshole, but I remember I was particularly annoyed when I heard my elderly grandmother received a $400,000 heart surgery on uncle sam's dime... which only extended her life by like 2 or 3 years. I'm not in any position to decide the value of life... but come the fark on, almost a half million dollars on someone who's retired? Who probably paid no where near that in taxes ever over her entire life?

At some point, we need to be more farking realistic. Not to mention no surgery should ever cost that kind of money.

I agree. Bullets are cheap: You best not get sick or someone might decide you're not worth the cost of keeping you alive.

/I hope that happens to you, I really, really do.//I hope your sociopathy is returned by the society you enable, I really, really do.///Have a nice day. Don't get sick.

ElizaDoolittle:Z1P2: Benevolent Misanthrope: Unless, of course, you live in a civilized country where everyone has insurance.

Ha! Thanks to obamacare my deductable went up 600% and the annual cap on most services (like speech therapy for my autistic son) has been cut in half, oh yeah and they no longer cover diabetes medication because who the hell needs to control their diabetes, right? I mean my wife does but you couldn't give two shots about any of us, isn't that right?

Obamacare doesn't kick in until next year and of course it covers diabetes medication.

1/10.

proof? I work in DME and just about everything is being examined by our government insurances right now. I am not saying you're wrong, just want some proof. Someone somewhere will be denied their medication, I can just about guarantee it.

Alonjar:I know it makes me an asshole, but I remember I was particularly annoyed when I heard my elderly grandmother received a $400,000 heart surgery on uncle sam's dime... which only extended her life by like 2 or 3 years. I'm not in any position to decide the value of life... but come the fark on, almost a half million dollars on someone who's retired? Who probably paid no where near that in taxes ever over her entire life?

At some point, we need to be more farking realistic. Not to mention no surgery should ever cost that kind of money.

On the bright(?) side, those days are over. They charge 6 bucks a pill for acetaminophen now. No codeine in it either.

Alonjar:PunGent: Eh, regardless of where you stand on Obama care, a big chunk of that $220,000 is probably near-useless medical effort expended in the last two months of life.

What's interesting is that most doctors insist on doing everything for their elderly or terminal patients, sometimes even despite a patient's written instructions, and yet, when it comes to THEIR end of life, the average doc prefers to go out peacefully (and cheaply) on his own terms.

Tell your family you don't want to spend $100,000, and your last month as a vegetable in an ICU, just so Aunt Minnie can fly in to pay her respects at your bedside.

I know it makes me an asshole, but I remember I was particularly annoyed when I heard my elderly grandmother received a $400,000 heart surgery on uncle sam's dime... which only extended her life by like 2 or 3 years. I'm not in any position to decide the value of life... but come the fark on, almost a half million dollars on someone who's retired? Who probably paid no where near that in taxes ever over her entire life?

At some point, we need to be more farking realistic. Not to mention no surgery should ever cost that kind of money.

I agree...but the flip side can be (and I REALLY hate to agree with Republicans on this one) something pretty close to death panels. Good buddy of mine lost an aunt up in Canada a few years back; she had at least a good five years in her, and all she needed was a hip replacement...they wouldn't even let family in the hospital room, and basically let her die rather than sign off on the operation.

Yeah, he's a little bitter about it.

And of course the example is countered by busloads of Americans heading north to buy the meds they need to live...